Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero, The Road to Southend Pier, and Far From EUtopia: Why Europe is failing and Britain could do better
Amazing what a bit of discipline can do. No sooner has Boris Johnson warned that anyone who wants to serve in his Cabinet must accept that leaving the EU without a deal is retained as an option, than the work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd is telling TalkRadio: ‘Both candidates have said that no deal
Yesterday, the Welsh government announced new guidelines to make school uniforms gender-neutral, which would mean an end to trousers being advertised for boys and skirts for girls. You can imagine the outrage if the UK government now tried to over-ride that decision, saying it was a load of silly nonsense. The rumblings in Cardiff would
You can tell a lot about the Left simply by reading the list of subjects which are trending on Twitter. Top spot this afternoon goes to the hashtag #BoycottHeck. If you are wondering what that means, Heck is a family firm based in North Yorkshire which until the weekend ran a blameless business making gluten-free
I often see National Trust vehicles around my way – transporting animals, digging, cutting wood and constructing bridges and the like. They do not appear to me to be electric-powered. I shouldn’t be surprised if, like my car, they are still powered by filthy old diesel. I am sure, like me, the Trust would rather
Is there any invention as ancient and as fundamental as soap? Traced to Babylonian civilisation around 2,800 bc (handy for scrubbing down after all that gardening), it almost certainly goes back millennia further than that. It is mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah and by 1550 bc the Egyptians were marketing it as a medicinal
What a great triumph for feminism – three of the BBC’s ten highest-paid presenters are now women, compared with none last year. That, at any rate, is how the BBC has chosen this morning to cover the publication of its annual report. The story on the BBC website is headed: BBC Pay: Claudia Winkleman, Zoe
As Jeremy Hunt has repeatedly claimed during the Conservative leadership campaign, to set a deadline of 31 October for leaving the EU is foolish. Why tie yourself to that date if a deal with EU negotiators seemed close to being sealed? But if you have fallen for that argument, it seems no less puzzling why
The deaths of El Salvadorian migrants Oscar Ramirez and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria are, it goes without saying, a horrible tragedy. But is the photo of their lifeless bodies, washed up on the shores of the Rio Grande, really a ‘picture that shames America’ as, for example, the Evening Standard put it yesterday? Whatever you
Jeremy Hunt’s case to be Conservative leader is that he is the sensible, low-risk option. While Boris is now committed – thanks to his interview on Talkradio yesterday to leave the EU on 31st October, come what may, ‘do or die’, Hunt is holding out the prospect of some flexibility. The last day of October,
Whatever you think of Boris Johnson’s ability to be Prime Minister you have to admire the PR skills of Carrie Symonds. Last Thursday evening an event occurred which could seriously damage Boris’ chances of winning the Tory party leadership contest – a domestic row between the couple in which the police were called to her
A neighbour records a domestic row through the wall of their flat, takes the recording to a newspaper which then publishes details of the conversation. I wonder what The Guardian would have made of that in 2011 when it was on its crusade against press intrusion which led to the Leveson Inquiry – especially had
Why are MPs so pathetically in thrall to Extinction Rebellion? This morning, while the world was focused on the Conservative leadership campaign six Commons select committees (Treasury, BEIS, Environmental Audit, Housing, Communities and Local Government, Science and Technology, and Transport) jointly launched a ‘Citizens’ Assembly’ on climate change. If you think you have heard that
Heathrow Airport commences the consultation on its third runway plans today with a very big problem on its hands: a man who has threatened to lie down in front of the bulldozers to stop the runway seems very likely to be Prime Minister by the time the consultation has concluded. In theory, the project ought
Ever since Tony Blair appeared on the scene I have found it hard to avoid watching an up-and-coming politician without trying to imagine a clerical collar around their neck. If the image sticks, I would say that person has a potential image problem in the making. Last week Rory Stewart won plaudits for his speech
News comes through this morning of a big death toll: 200,000 over the past 12 months. What’s more, it has happened right beneath our noses – in Britain. Not that these are recognised as the deaths of humans, because the people in question are not accorded human rights. They are, to use the fashionable term
Even before the government this week announced a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, the Tory leadership contenders were competing fiercely to establish their green credentials. Andrea Leadsom has vowed to declare a ‘climate emergency’. Rory Stewart has upgraded it to a ‘climate cataclysm’ and wants to double
Theresa May is said to be desperately searching for a legacy in her last few weeks at Number 10. It is staring her in the face. Today, the Office for National Statistics published its latest employment figures which confirm, against all odds, that we are in the midst of a jobs miracle of which any
Well, that was surprising. The BBC has announced that from 2020 it will do away with free TV licences for the over-75s. In future, free licences will only be available to households which have at least one member receiving pension credit. Everyone else will have to pay the full whack of £154.50 a year. In
The concept of Boris Johnson avoiding publicity takes some getting used to. Normally, the man seeks out TV studios like apes seek out trees – they are a natural habitat from which it would be cruel to separate him. Yet Boris has suddenly gone missing, to the point Boris-watchers might soon start to worry about
The problem for Michael Gove is not that thousands of Conservative party members will open their copy of the Daily Mail this morning and think to themselves: ‘Gove has taken illegal drugs, therefore he is unfit to be Prime Minister’. It is that Gove or his supporters will fall into the trap of trying to
